50km, 950m elevation gain, 6.45am – 7pm
While I stayed warm and slept much better than at Cass, again there was massive condensation on the fly. With no breeze, the temperature differential between outside and inside was just too high. Getting ready, I clumsily brushed waterfalls onto my bag and mat. OSMs for breakfast definitely occupied a lower circle in hell than TBs. Even worse, one was chocolate as Methven’s shelves had been stripped.
Again I’d decided to start the next technical section in the light rather than get up early. At first it was pushable as I picked my way up the stream, following a vague ground trail. I’d assumed that being part of Te Araroa would render this track a highway. Totally wrong. The warratahs seemed spaced wider than usual, the next barely visible from the last. I played leapfrog with Chris and Bob as we mostly pushed, sometimes hauled, winding up the valley and crossing the icy stream a few times. I fell heavily, landing on my left leg, on a rock. One of those falls where you feel the bone to check it’s intact. The rear rotor must have crunched into another rock at the same time. Pushing was now problematic as the wheel wouldn’t really turn. But with steeper ground around the corner, it was time to carry anyway.
The climb to Stag Saddle felt shorter than some of our other tussock missions. I scrambled up the true left of the stream, trying hard to follow the route, and watching Chris and Bob ahead of me go a slightly more difficult way! The last few hundred metres of the climb were shallower, though the tussock-and-rock obstacle course still made carrying essential. When I reached the stream headwater, conscious today would be another bluebird scorcher, I dropped my bike and scrambled to a clean-looking spot. As usual I tried to drink, camel-like, as well as refilling. When I starting slogging up again, Chris and Bob had disappeared from sight.
Just after 10.15am, I reached the saddle, where a lone bike rested on the sign post proclaiming this Te Araroa’s high point at 1925m. I recognised the bike as Dulkara’s and figured she was doing something extreme like climbing a nearby peak. Our route departed Te Araroa here, sidling untracked to a descending ridge. The sidle looked easy on the map but made you sigh in reality. I didn’t pause or put the bike down but kept carrying around the scree-edged basin, picking a line up and down numerous rocky spurs. I promised myself a rest and an attempt at rotor truing once I reached the ridge.
Maybe 30 minutes later, just before I would move off the basin’s slopes onto the flatter ridge crest, I slipped. This time I landed on my right knee, which took the full weight of me, bike and gear. I extricated myself from the carry straps, and dragged everything the 2 metres to level ground. My main reaction was frustration that first aid was now another job i had to do. With the wound still mostly numb from impact, I flushed out grit with precious water and an alcohol wipe, then saturated it with hand sanitiser before plastering the deepest gashes. While this isn’t exactly recommended first aid practice (and is certainly painful!), these relatively deep abrasions would be looking amazingly good by that evening.
Next job: the rotor, while simultaneously trying to eat lunch (shapes and peanut butter) and check my phone. The rotor was clearly deformed and I spent a while with the bike upside down rebending it. First using my flat, lightweight knife, soon slightly curved, and then my multitool. Not for the last time, I regretted ditching pliers to save weight. But eventually I bent the rotor flat enough for the wheel to turn. All this stuffing around had taken a frustrating 45 minutes.
During this stop, part of my brain had been reflecting on Steve Halligan’s insta post about arriving here after midnight. He could see the lights of Tekapo but they proved 7 frozen hours away. I wondered how long it would take me – it was 11.40 now. My brain also recalled others’ posts about shredded sidewalls, which would not help my downhill inhibitions.
While some riders loved this descent, I just wanted it to be over. The rocks ranged from small to large but were always sharp. The sun beat down from the cloudless, windless sky. Spot heights provided unwelcome, unexpected ups. While views were magic, the lake’s blue unearthly and Aoraki majestic, I was focused on survival, of myself and my tires.
Finally, after maybe an hour and a half, I neared the track to Camp Stream hut. A precipitous tussock maze stood in my way. I angrily wrestled through it to join the 4wd track. I knew the hut was close and resolved to check my brake pads, concerned the rear rotor damage was chewing them up.
At the hut, I felt hugely disappointed at its lack of shade. The stifling heat felt overwhelming and I could hardly think. I leaned my bike in the tiny sliver of hut shadow and started to remove the brake pads. Then I slashed my thumb pad deeply with the retaining pin. Blood splashed everywhere. Cursing my stupidity, I switched to first aid. After cleaning and inspecting the cut, my initial concern ebbed along with the blood flow. I packed it with crystacide, put on a couple of plasters and added them to my mental Tekapo shopping list, which already included the panadol I was needing to sleep at night. Then i went back to the brakes. Both sets of pads were fine and I heartily wished i hadn’t bothered. These 30 minutes had not been well spent.
Swallowing a snack – one of my last – I started back into the relentless sun. I thought the 4wd track would continue through the next section. I was mistaken. Instead it was hell on earth. The heat, my now extremely bad mood and many vicious plants combined to make this my most hated section of the route. Later I found this sentiment was widely shared and Brian may remove it.
The route dropped to the stream then wound its way down the true left. Some bits were temptingly ridable; at others the track totally disappeared. After initially taking my pedals off, I put them back on, and took them off again in less than 2km. Pedals were problematic because of that mean, thorned South Island plant that someone later reminded me was called Matagouri. During one of the pedals-on periods, I massively smacked my right shin on its protruding screws, and blood oozed all afternoon. The sun blazed down, uncaring, the temperature surely above 35. The Matagouri seemed to have a personal vendetta and I gained more scratches. The song Cauterise by Red, with all its burning imagery, pounded around and around in my head. It’s surprising to look back and see this section took only an hour.
Rounding a corner, the stream joined Coal River and I started to see the climb ahead. It was a goat track, heading diagonally up a cliff-like face. I could see a walker picking her way down; we intersected at the base. “How are you going to get your bike up there?,” she asked in a spirit of genuine curiousity. We wished each other luck. I felt an angry antipathy towards carrying, so awkwardly pushed up at the pace of a snail. After a couple of minutes it was clear I should have stopped at the bottom to put the sweetroll on my back. Instead I risked falling by doing this on the narrow, steep path.
As I slugged on, Dulkara breezed into view. She had indeed climbed a peak and looked quizzically at my struggles. Then she threw her bike on her back and gazelled away. I think I encountered some puzzled walkers before the top, though perhaps they were an hallucination. For brief periods I carried the bike under my arm, with difficulty without the strap, which I just couldn’t be bothered putting on. Why had I brought such a heavy bike? I was now in full agreement with all the people who kept telling me Ogres were too heavy. I was so in the moment that every moment lasted a painful eternity. The bent rotor’s metallic dings did not help.
Finally the climb topped out and I descended to the Round Hill skifield road. But instead of taking the easy right, the route continued along a mountain bike track. I’d been hanging out for this, knowing from youtube it was well within my comfort zone. But crazy heat and growing hunger spoiled the experience. Trying to reduce bike weight combined with a now-normal appetite meant I’d undercatered this section, and my blood sugar was flagging. The track sidled for an eternity before I hit Boundary Stream and the real descent began. This too felt like forever, rather than fun. Twice I rounded corners to face a precipitous rocky shute. I walked these, and longed for the bottom.
Spat onto the road, I flicked on Ride with GPS but kept rolling, pondering tonight. The road sped down to a bridge and I thought of Rob, who’d wiped out here during a recon ride, putting him out of the race. I remembered looking at the photos of his day’s riding and my mind shying away from imagining myself there. Now it was done but my mood wasn’t exactly triumphant. As the road climbed out of the stream bed, I spied a layby with trees and beelined towards their shade. It was 5.45pm but the air remained oven like.
I was over today, still too hot and even more hungry. Every fibre of me wanted to stop in Tekapo for the night. Winning this argument was easy: I needed to properly retrue the rotor, which at faster speeds was dring-ing in an intensely annoying way; I wanted to wash my clothes and have a shower. By the time I reached town and did a much-needed resupply, the extra couple of hours I might ride tonight could be substituted by getting up early. So I phoned the holiday park, listening to my defeated-sounding voice in a disembodied way.
Perhaps I should have felt buoyant, heading for shelter and food, the most difficult kms behind me. Tekapo was only 15 kms away – I’d be there by 7pm. But a headwind beat me back and the temperature, rather than dropping, seemed to be rising. I flopped onto my aerobars and ground away, failing to appreciate the jewel-like lake or cloudless sky. The rotor’s metallic song sawed at my brain. I did retain enough logic to know lack of calories was driving my fugue.
Approaching Tekapo’s outskirts, the route hopped on a cycle path. It was weird to wind my way among clean, slow-moving holiday makers. I passed the iconic church then rejoined the highway for the last few hundred metres into town, feeling relief.
Tekapo marked the end of the route’s wild middle, the section that we’d all obsessed over. It was easy to think the tough times stopped here. But if I couldn’t shed that mindset, the last third would be torture. There were still two big barriers between me and Slope Point: the Hawkdun range and the Serpentine area. Both isolated, long and packed with contour lines. Tonight I needed to refocus on the rest of the race.
I pulled into the shopping area just before 7pm and was overwhelmed. Far from being dead without tourists, this Saturday night Tekapo was humming, people everywhere. The fish and chip shop sported a massive queue. After 5 seconds in that crammed, humid space, I decided to source dinner from the supermarket. This large, beautifully cold building was not far away, uncrowded and full of choices. I repeatedly chanted my mental list to avoid paralysis.
Exiting with my bounty, I sat in welcome shade, my back against the supermarket’s wall. I downed a Kapiti icecream like it was medicine, followed by a bottle of powerade. Normal people looked at me curiously but I didn’t care. I wanted to refill my calorie deficit enough to do some jobs before dinner. If I got to the holiday park reception by 8, I’d be able to get change for a washing machine. These are the kinds of thoughts that circle round a bikepacker’s brain.
After 50m on the busy main road, I turned off around the lake to the park. It appeared to be undergoing a mega makeover, and looked more like a gated community than your traditional kiwi camping ground. After successfully collected change, I ground up a rise and eventually found my luxurious cabin, complete with a deck, grass spot and picnic table all its own. The people next door eyed me suspiciously as I draped my sodden tent on the picnic table to dry. I remember checking the weather online and at 6pm it was still the day’s hottest temperature.
I showered and found the washing machine, picking my way along the gravel barefoot so both pairs of socks could be clean. Sitting outside my cabin, I ate my eclectic dinner: bread rolls and guacamole, plus pre-packaged pasta and salad from the supermarket chiller. Weirdly all the salads on display had contained bacon but I longed for greens so picked it out.
Some rationality returned. I realised how painful my left ear was, just where it joined my head. Obviously rubbed by my glasses, it was like a paper cut on repeat. But I’d only consciously noticed it now, though my subconscious confirmed it had been a constant for hours. I didn’t feel joyful or happy, and maintained background guilt for not going on. At least I didn’t consciously realise I’d only travelled 50km! I looked at where everyone else had stopped and judged where I might get tomorrow by Pete’s progress. At least Chris and Bob had also chosen to stop in Tekapo.
It was time for a serious look at the rotor and I watched a reassuring Parktools video. The deformed spot was made obvious by the giant rock scratch. I tried again and again to bend it straight, using the hinge in my multitool as improvised pliers. After about a hundred tries, on perhaps my tenth ‘just one more go’, when I spun the wheel, the dring was gone. It would stay true enough till the end. Having had to retrue it subsequently, i now realise how miraculous this was.